Thursday, March 17, 2011

THEME: IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME (41A: Totally confused response)— rebus puzzle with four Greek letters (ALPHA, BETA, PI, OMEGA) located in squares throughout the grid

Word of the Day: MALLOMAR (24D: Chocolate-coated treat) —

In the US, Mallomars are produced seasonally at Nabisco. A graham cracker circle is covered with a puff of extruded marshmallow, then enrobed in dark chocolate, which forms a hard shell. Mallomars were introduced to the public in 1913, the same year as the Moon Pie (a confection which has similar ingredients). The first box of Mallomars was sold in West Hoboken, NJ (now Union City, NJ). Nabisco discusses it with a short story printed on Mallomar boxes. // Because Mallomars melt easily in summer temperatures, they can become difficult to find during the summer: they are generally available from early October through April. Devoted eaters of the cookie have been known to stock up during winter months and keep them refrigerated over the summer; though paradoxically, Nabisco markets other fudge-coated cookie brands year-round. Seventy percent of all Mallomars are sold in metropolitan New York. The issue of Nabisco's choice to release Mallomars seasonally became a parodied topic on a sketch delivered by graphic artist Pierre Bernard on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. // According to the box, Mallomars are made in Canada by Kraft Foods. In Canada, these are known as "Dream Puffs." (wikipedia)

• • •

This didn't work for me, despite the fact that I think the rebus-square-containing answers are pretty genius in places. I'm almost certain I've seen a theme like this before, but that's not the real problem. I just don't get the letter selection. Random Greek letters??? Why these letters? Further, why lead with ALPHA BETA and then follow with ... PI OMEGA?? Boo to not being St. Patrick's Day-themed, first of all (not the constructor's fault, obviously), and then double-boo to PI and OMEGA. I went looking for St. Pat's theme, and then when I got the theme I went looking, naturally, for GAMMA DELTA. That's the progression. There is no "aha" to getting PI OMEGA. More of an "... oh. Huh. OK." Not a fan of arbitrariness. That said, very impressive the way OMEGA got worked in here as part of INCOMEGAP and HOMEGAME. ORALPHASE (1D: First part psychosexual development)and BETAWARD (19A: Annual prize won multiple times by Beyoncé and LeBron James), also nice. Fill on the puzzle was just fine. Theme just fell flat for me.

Theme answers:

ALPHABETSONGS / ORALPHASE

TIBETANMONK (9D: Devout Lhasan) / BETAWARD

WHOOPI (63A: First name on "The View") / LIGHTPINK

INCOMEGAP / HOMEGAME

Not buying LIGHTPINK (42D: Color of many nurseries). Buying PINK, but not buying LIGHTPINK. Not loving the NW corner at all, where NOBIS (Latin) (2D: "Dona ___ pacem" (Catholic Mass phrase)) and esp. SIEG (Ger.) (18D: German "victory") were completely avoidable (I can fix that corner sitting here, without any software aid at all, which means there must be many ways to make those weak foreignisms, as well as the horrid plural SETAE, disappear). Top of the puzzle much easier than the bottom, mostly because of the GAMMA DELTA goose chase. PI, not surprisingly, was the hardest of the four Greek letters to find—much easier to turn up a big sucker like OMEGA than a slip of thing like PI. Had to sing "Over the Rainbow" to myself, and still couldn't find the end because the song kept getting interfered with in my brain by Whitney Houston's "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" (an unexpected downside of watching "Idol" right before I solve)

86
comments:

This is one of those puzzles where you have to enjoy the challenge of the solve, I think, and shrug off the arbitrariness. I think the fun here came in realizing that the placement and identity of the Greek letters wasn't going to be either symmetrical or obvious, so you really had to think about where they would make sense. In too many rebuses you know just where the rebus squares are going to be, and at that point, what's the use of a rebus? This worked for me because I had to hunt for each rebus square.

I picked up the rebus at TI_N MONK, and struggled the most with the NW, where ORAL PHASE took a while to make itself clear to me. Last part filled was the GAD/LOG/DOG/MALLOMAR area, where the unfamiliar confection confounded me.

Theme would have worked for me if the last two letters of the Greek alphabet had been used: psi, omega.Then there would have been the first two and the last two.The rest of the puzzle was okay, and of a medium rating. Good Thursday.

Today is my dad's birthday. He would have been 104. He and mom are celebrating again finally.

Similar feelings to Rex on this one, but I think I enjoyed it a bit more.

I like PurpleGuy's comment about using PHI instead of PI. Not only would it have been more consistent, it would have gotten rid of PI, which is the weak link. The other greek letters are woven in very nicely.

Resisted the rebus as long as I could till WHOOPI made it unavoidable.beta and omega fell right in then but since my rusty latin had put in novis ,ALPHA took a little longer. Impressive but also ICK.On the other hand like a puzzle that makes you sing!

Is it kosher that 19A uses the A twice? It's BETA aWARD not BETA WARD. That one did not sit well with me, what am I missing?

I asked for a rebus and I got it, lovely. It took me way too long to figure it out, finally got it when I had BET SONGS and looked down to 41A which I had already filled in and did the forehead slap thing and aped Homer with DOH!

Got the theme at (BET A)WARD but it still was a sloooowww slog, albeit fun. Had OPRAH @ 63A, erased it several times, went through the entire cast of The View, which non-puzzle wife watches (I only see it in passing), decided NONE fit, and then - D'oh! - IT ISN'T OPRAH. Had AN(AL PHA)SE @1D for a while. Also TORAH for KORAN at one point.

I am a rebus fan. But I do agree with Rex -- something else was needed to makes some sense of why these letters. Maybe there is something we're not getting. Whatever. Still fun. It took me forever. I got it when I had ___NMONK. That made ALPHA pretty easy and then PI. OMEGA was the last to fall. Appropriately.

@ret. chem -- I also got it with BETAWARD and I'm with Mathew G's take on this one--fun solve that took some work, e.g. I started with OPED, then tried TRYST for 3d so, it did take a while. The kinda arbitrary Greek letter selection between ALPHA and OMEGA seemed strange but, to me, made this one more interesting. Nice Thurs.!

@retired_chem - Thanks, I Googled them both after your comment and BET AWARDS and BETa AWARDS do exist. How many red carpets am I supposed to look at? Personally, I shun them all, even the Oscars, Emmys, etc. Gimme a good football game any day.

The Beta Awards are for excellence in Western New York Information Technology. BET is Black Entertainment Television. This probably didn't confuse many people.

There was nothing Medium about my Challenging--this was hard. No problem with OMEGA, but the PI and (especially) ALPHA corners were thorny. Having PLUS column _forever_ didn't help, and the symmetry of PI/BETA threw me off when I finally got there. Nice work.

Any other iPad solvers have a problem with this one? All my answers are correct, and still it won't accept it. I'm figuring this has something to do with the rebus-ness of the puzzle, but I've never had this issue with other rebuses. Or maybe it's just me.

I'd like to say I figured it out and finished, but that would be a big ol' lie.

The only corner that filled itself in was the SE, and I was puzzled about what the hell INCoP was. I would like to think that if I'd put it aside and come back later, the light would have gone on in my cranium. As it is, the cranial area is dark.

Lots of trouble in the corners... I knew there were Greek letters in there somewhere but I just couldn't make it work. Having ADOS (for ROWS) at 10D and JAL (for ANA) at 11D didn't help. And after finally getting Alpha and Beta, of course I wanted Gamma and Delta.

Haven't posted for a while, but I liked the puzzle a lot, even though nothing jumps out at me to explain why. Maybe it's because it was more challenging than the usual Thursday. and took me forever to pick up on the theme.

In any event, I didn't like it as much as I like my Mallomars-- they're the best, particularly frozen.

@Erik - Not weird at all. It was mine, too, and I'm not Catholic and never took latin.

I didn't even realize this was a rebus until I got to the SE corner and realized that COM had to go into 57D. Then 70A had be looking for two consecutive rebus squares. Then the light dawned, and I could finish that corner and go fill in the holes in the other corners. I'd never heard of BET awards.

I work at Justice in a Division that goes by the name ATR. Was hoping 40 down would be that once I had the AT. Though my husband said that would have been unfair since ATR is an acronynm not known to outsiders. Ah well.

I got the theme at ITSALLGREEKTOME, and alpha, beta, and omega fell pretty easily. Then I (like PurpleGuy) really wanted psi for symmetry. Having "lavendar" in for the nursery color didn't help me find WHOO(pi). Well, 3/14 WAS Pi Day, which in this household was celebrated with Boston Cream Pie, but in nearby Princeton was celebrated with a Pi recitation contest--first prize in the 7 to 13 year old category was a kid who knew 315 digits!

I started "confidently" by putting TV RATING for 22D and GO AWOL for 55A. Took me a while to correct this. I got the IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME early on. Then not much progress. Google helped me fill most of the puzzle.Then I stared blankly at A BET SONGS and ORASE, TIBN MONK and BWARD, IN COP, WHOOP and LIGHT PNK and gave up. I must admit that I was totally clueless about the rebus until I read Rex comments.It's not that I don't like rebus puzzles. It's just that I only seldom get on the same wavelength as the puzzle constructor.For me it was like listening to a good joke but missing the punch line altogether.Now after the debacle of last Friday and Saturday I am going to pass on the puzzle for the next two days (I think).

@Anonymous 9:47 a.m.: Anything that orbits a planet is a satellite. That includes moons (also known as "natural satellites"), space stations, communication satellites, navigation satellites, and random pieces of space junk. Although layman's usage has come to use the word "satellite" more narrowly, the scientific usage is far broader.

@chefwen: I think the (BETA)WARD clue was fair, even if there's also something called the "Beta Award," since the clue referred to two very famous black celebrities, pointing in one very specific direction.

Effective January 24, 2003, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was transferred under the Homeland Security bill to the Department of Justice. The law enforcement functions of ATF under the Department of the Treasury were transferred to the Department of Justice. The tax and trade functions of ATF will remain in the Treasury Department with the new Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

Pretty close to Friday hard for me. I rarely disagree with the host, but I thought this was fine fare. Rebuses shouldn't be confined to the constraints of other puzzles (IMOO). I loved it.

Thanks Ms. Shechtman,

ps - to any who will be attending the tourney this weekend, I will be at the bar at the Marriott sometime between 3 and 4 tomorrow afternoon. Look for the old guy in jeans and a black sweater with a scraggly gray beard.

My first rebus entry was the Whoopi/pink cross and that gave me the others. I finished pretty smoothly and rated it medium.

Nobis was a gimme--have sung that song many times as a round ever since church camp fifty+ years ago. It is in our hymnal. Having just wound up our b-ball season I knew 70A had to be homegame so omega came easily. Alphabet songs easy. Already had the monk so once I knew I was looking for a Greek letter Tibetan fell in.

I really enjoyed this one. I can feel smart all day long while cleaning bath and guest room for my brother's visit tonight. Happy St. Pat's all.

I am just not good with rebupodes.Just when I think I am getting a handle on them, we get a super tough one. Big Love is brilliant.Underneath the frenetic pace is an amazingly subtle study of Utah, Mormonism, and a particularly American brand of bland religious fervor.It must be watched from the beginning and in order, but the payoff is huge.

It took me too long to acknowledge that there was a rebus. I *knew* it had to be TIBETENMONK and LIGHT(blue or) PINK (and yes, it's just pink), and WHOOPI's the only "View" person I know. It was fun finding the Greek letters, and I don't mind their random placements, but I'm with others that the arbitrariness of the four chosen was off-putting. That said, I think HOMEGAME/INCOMEGAP is a stroke of genius.

Thanks, @Retired_Chemist. Although it's not the same on a PC, you did give me the clue. As a matter of fact (Doh!) it's the Insert key. I found it via Literate Software [litsoft.com], which also has a few other useful hints.

And for whoever was mentioning it, I haven't had any problems downloading Across Lite using Chrome as my browser.

BTW, I just noticed that Crossword Butler, which had been out of action for quite a while, is back in business. Useful for one quick download of a whole list of puzzles.

I don't get the complaints about the irregularity of the Greek letter placements or the choices. It seems to this non-constructor that finding four such that work as crosses, two of which are five letter and one four, is a real challenge and that the present success in so doing nears virtuoso quality. There was one in each corner of the grid, with alpha in the NW, beta in the NE, and omega in the SE. I don't think I should expect more.

I would go further, retired_chemist, and say that today's puzzle is improved by its irregularity. The unexpected placements make it more of a puzzle and less of an attempt to make a pretty grid.

As I've mentioned a few times, I think I comparatively care less than our host does about grid structure and comparatively more than he does about the originality of the kind of thinking a puzzle makes one do on the way to the solve. Not saying my philosophy is better, but it does mean this puzzle rates higher with me than with Rex.

Liked the puzzle a lot, but found it very, very challenging. I got the greek-letter rebus gimmick early, but not knowing which letters were going to crop up, or where, set me back on my heels.

Whoopi Goldberg spells her name without an "e"? The Maine state legislature is improving its time with a bill to make whoopie pies the official state desert. I may have to emigrate.

The NW (last corner) nearly sunk me. I'd written down all the greek letters I could think of, and "alpha" wasn't on the list. Not exactly a classical scholar. Plus, it slipped my mind that there was any OT peak other than Ararat. Not a biblical scholar either. Never took psychology, so I was convinced psychosexual development would involve Oedipus and his complex, even though that didn't mesh well with my memoirist gOrE.

Eventually it all worked out.

I'll be the hick at the bar recuperating from her life-altering encounter with New York City traffic. Unless I bail at Stamford and take the train in.

I'm putting my failure at this puzzle down to the cold I have had all week. Rough night, so I filled in nearly everything and still, like @Anon 9:53, I just never saw the rebuses / rebi / rebera (?). What is the plural of rebus?

Even if I had gotten the rebus idea, though, the SW would probably have defeated me. HTG for The View cast, where I learned that two of them have five-letter names: Rosie and Sheri, both with crosswordy combos of letters. I know the phrase "He sufficeth me" from a Bahai song (college roommate) and since it fits in the same five letters as KORAN, well...

Best of luck to all who attend the ACPT! I hope you will find some time to come here and let us know how it's going. Wish I could meet a few of you. I'm starting to think I might go to the L.A. Tournament on May 1.

I will make my invective as short as possible. (1) I'm supposed to remember an arithmetic teaching concept (ONES column) at my age? Even without a calculator, I can do the math without ever needing to use that concept anymore. (2) Crossing SETAE which I could not quite remember, which (3) crosses ROVE, which I did not begrudge Googling, but had to. (4) My greatest fury is reserved for ORAL PHASE, because Freud wrote about stages, not PHASEs. I don't know the Mass, so did not have a prayer of coming up with NOBIS - I translated the clue loosely, and ended up with a John & Yoko earworm: "all we are saying is give peace a chance." And finally(5) the corner closes out with "ALPHA"BETSONGS which are used much earlier than kindergarten these days. Oh yeah, I also hate Mallomars and their ilk.

Other than that, I liked the puzzle. Figured out the theme at bedtime, when I observed that the middle had gone smoothly, but the corners were all incomplete. It occurred to me that 41A was a reveal. Put down puzzle, turned out light, tossed and turned (mentally), got Whoo(pi), turned on light. Fought my way through all of the rest, starting with (omega), then (beta), then gave up. Got up this morning, no new insights, got out the Greek alphabet list, and still could not crack the aforementioned NW.

It has been said before, but I will repeat, the rebus in the NW is not symmetrically placed! Yet the NE and SW are symmetrical! So I kept trying to put a Greek letter where the V in Rove is, after I had erased EVENT! If the other pair had not been evenly place, I wouldn't have tried so vainly, so long.

Can you tell that when I complete a puzzle with errors, even after "cheating," it really ticks me off? My apologies for the rant. An impressive puzzle, just not on my wavelength in the NW, with the double Naticks, and a Greek letter.

About two years ago the Sunday puzzle was a half-rebus where the Greek letters had to be spelled out in one direction while they ganged up to make up fraternity names in the other direction.

There was a Greek alphabet rebus more than ten years ago--the one answer I remember was Φladelφia.

Because I was happy with HOME for 70A, I took forever to get HωME. After having his name drummed into my head enough times in the puzzle, I was actually able to rely on EPPS.

For 64D I originally had PIE, as in hipPIE. If I only knew how close I was!

I did not know if 49A Major crossroads was singular or plural, so I opted for CRISeS crossing Eris. I figured one more Greek mythology reference to go with Argus up north was a way cool idea by the constructor.

I had no problem with NOBIS (Latin 101). I don't know Catholic masses, but "Give __ peace" had to be us (in the dative), so it was a gimme.

@44: Think you're right, about the slight dejavuosity of the puz today. I've been workin' thru the Will Shortz's Favorite Puz book lately, and have had that feelin' a couple times this week. (I've been tryin' to beef up for the tourney--maybe can be the new "444"?)

Peter Gordon has a greek letter puz in the "Favorites" book. And Alan Arbesfeld has a Malt-Mult puz in it.

Fun puzzle; made me work at it. I had 41 A before I got any of the rebi, so I kept looking for possibilities. The relative paucity of theme answers (well, relative to a Sunday puzz, say) somehow made it more difficult.

Write-overs at 11D, JAL before ANA (as @mmorgan), and 46A, FETE before FEST.

I don't want to re-open a recent controversy, but at 1A, shouldn't it be YOUR instead of ONE'S? I would say to Rex, "I enjoy reading YOUR column," not "One's column." (What's that you say? Shut up and have some M&Ms? . . . . .)

I enjoyed this puzzle. I expected to find GAMMA after ALPHA and BETA, and then I got OMEGA, so I figured the missing Greek letter would be the second to last in the alphabet. However I'm probably not alone in not having the answer on the tip of my tongue.One possible location for that option would be 60A = STO[PSI]GN and49D = PO[PSI]NTOwith other changes as necessary.

@MatthewG, I said nothing about "grid structure" or symmetry or the placement of the rebus squares or whatever some other people are remarking on. I said the choice of letters was arbitrary, and it is. You might like that. I did not. IT'S RANDOMLY GREEK TO ME.

@JenCT _ Darn it, I have to remember to use more emoticons! :) ;>) ):-)

No one seems to get it when I try making a joke! Or maybe it's just that my jokes aren't funny? :))

I was just struck by the fact that on Monday the blog went on and on re: the difference between "Melt in your mouth" and "Melt in one's mouth"; and today at 1A we have a poor, defenseless ONES which I was cruel enough to suggest should be replaced by YOUR. If your mind were as twisted as mine, you might find it funny?!? :)

All solvers (median solve time, average for day of week, ratio, percentile, rating)

Thu 23:09, 19:10, 1.21, 87%, Challenging

Top 100 solvers

Thu 14:24, 9:16, 1.55, 96%, Challenging

I'm afraid that my numbers might be a little skewed today by the fact that there have been problems accessing the online interface today (do you suppose that it's pure coincidence that this glitch happened on the very day that the nytimes.com is rolling out their new online pay model in Canada?). The number of online solvers is substantially lower than is usual on a Thursday. That said, my own solve time places this puzzle firmly in the Challenging category. My time was adversely affected by locking in on simply HOME as an acceptable answer for 70A: What players don't have to travel far for (pretty stupid of me in retrospect). If I'd simply clicked the DONE! button as soon as I'd filled all the squares, I'd probably have shaved a good two minutes off of my time (HOME being an accepted entry). As it was, I kept looking at INCOP and trying to figure out what Greek letter could be substituted for the I, N, C or P. DOH!

Like Rex, I was on board with the logic of ALPHA and BETA being the first two Greek letters and OMEGA being the last, but quite annoyed with the randomness of PI (the 16th Greek letter).

I love that PI was the end of WHOOPI for some reason that made the whole puzzle for me...

And dare I admit that I had anALPHAse first and almost fainted!

And yes, theme's been done before but as long as there are new entries it shouldn't matter, theoretically(Or else I'm smarting bec I didn't know about Alan's M*LT puzzle, but all five theme answers were different)

In terms of dejavu/dejawritten, I'm itching to tell my Mallomar story again with my mom standing in the aisle screaming that she was the crazy lady that bought out the entire accidentally-delivered-stock of Mallomar's in Minneapolis circa 1976!

And I know I've mentioned a half dozen times that when I lived in Greece, they say "It's all Chinese to me"... I also kept looking for a Greek letter in IONIA.

See some of you at the ACPT? I look just like Dave (minus the scraggly beard, and I may wear a beret).

Can NOT get over St P's day in NYC! it's crazy here, HOURS after the parade with EVERY street corner a gaggle of Irish and so much green (tshirts, hair, you name it!) Wow, that's the way to do it, I guess!

In SF it was one small parade (I think maybe even combined with Mardi Gras) down at the Civic Center last weekend!

re: not buying LIGHT PINK echoed by others, I was working on a mostly pink quilt for granddaughter soon to be born which contains 24 pink fabrics in every shade from rich fuchsia to the barest blush and including bubblegum, shocking, rose gold, petal and many other shades of pink. My point being that pink might need the modifier light as not all pinks are light. Actually a light pink nursery would be kind of boring. Especially for the baby as they see bright colors and sharp contrasts best.

I liked this in general, but after I figured out the rebus in the NE and SW which were symmetrical, I kept looking in the SE for a Greek letter in STREETCAR/TIRES symmetrical with ALPHAbetsongs, which I got early. Never resolved HOME/INCOP until coming here.

Another first for me, I kept getting error messages trying to access this blog comment page (at 7PM ET). After trying for a few minutes, I finally went and registered the error with blogspot/google...as soon as I did that I got right in. Anyone else have problems?

Good luck to those of you going to the ACPT. Out of my league, but at least I enjoy these NYT puzzles and this group!

@ Bob K. I got your joke.I got the rebus at Whoopi even though I've never seen the show.Home as it stood seemed plausible albeit a stretch but that was the last to fall.The NW was a problem of its own since I clung to Gore for too long. My hand did not want to write the evil name Rove. Bush's Brain? What is that? A one page book?Not enough time or money to jet to NYC for the ACPT but I'm sure I'm missing a good time. Enjoy and share the stories!

@Lindsay 12:13 If you've braved the traffic in NYC I imagine you might have seen Mount SINAI (Hospital) on 5th Ave sometime.@Skua76 7:22 I did the puzzle late this p.m. and got error messages too when I tried to enter this comment.Also, I agree with those who considered 49D Major crossroads to be the plural crisEs.One major crossroad is only a crisIs!

I couldn't solve this one, rare for me. It wasn't so much that the Greek letters had to be in order, as that the first two WERE in order -- and in the same row -- which set expectations that were not met. I also have no idea about mallomar -- isn't there something called a mallocup? When that didn't work, I tried mallobar. For a while, I actually had 'lime tone' for "light pink." Just a fiasco for me.

Liked the rebus; guessed correctly from α and β that the final rebus square would be ω and even guessed that one of the words would be HΩME; then disappointed that the next-to-last letter didn't show up, but still one thumb up. Not a thumb and a half because "αbet" is taking the easy route (the ALPHA is there for good reason).

Best wrong guess: the Downs-only solving group here found the rebus only after overcoming w wrong turn at the central 41A, which (without benefit of the clue) was first guessed to be IT'S_GREEN_TO_ME in honor of St.Pat's!

•Chocolate-coated marshmallow treats are produced in different variations around the world, with several countries claiming to have invented it or hailing it as their "national confection." The first chocolate-coated marshmallow treat was created about 200 years ago in Denmark.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallomar

A solid medium for me. If @chefwen hadn't begged for a rebus yesterday, it might have taken me longer to figure it out, but I got it pretty quickly with alpha and beta. Of course I went looking for gamma and delta, and when that didn't work, psi and omega.....

"Nobis" wasn't just a gimme, it was an earworm.

When was the last time we saw a j in the puzzle?

Didn't we decide rebus wasn't latin, so no rebi?

@Bob K: always add a ;-)!

@Lindsey: train to Grand Central, then the R train to Brooklyn.

Looking for imsdave? Tall, handsome, whitehaired gentleman with a big grin on his face.

Oh, I loved this. It took me a while but was happy to finish.DONA NOBIS PACEM (grant us peace) sung as a round. @Greene: Will you let us know the one horrid and one excellent?@Andreigha: I for one would love to hear the MALLOMAR story.@Quilter 1 can we see a picture?@Bob K. A two ply kleenex.I wish I could cozy up to the scraggly's in NY. I love that city and about now would be having a good dry martini.

This week's relative difficulty ratings. See my 7/30/2009 post for an explanation. In a nutshell, the higher the ratio, the higher this week's median solve time is relative to the average for the corresponding day of the week.

All solvers (this week's median solve time, average for day of week, ratio, percentile, rating)

Best Seo Site I Social Bookmarking Post I Sell Directory List I Directory Posting I Blog List I Blog posting I Forum posting I Sell Forum List I PR 01I PR 02 I Add your URL to Google I Add your URL to MSN I Add your URL to Yahoo I Backlinks posting I Keyword Marketing I Facebook wall post I Twitter wall post I Get Real Visitors I USA Visitors I Uk Visitors.http://www.shopseoservice.com

@Bob K. - You probably don't even remember your ONES/YOUR joke of 5 weeks ago, but I got it (without any "reveal" emoticons) and chuckled remembering how worked up so many folks had been over the issue. It's nice to see that not everyone takes themselves so seriously and can poke a little fun at the community.

As for today's puzzle, I was prepared to hate it until I finished it - now I think it's a pretty decent Friday puzzle posing as a Thursday. I had the reveal early on and (WHOOP)PI was the first greek letter to appear, followed in quick succession by the awesome OMEGA cross and the TI(BETA)NMONK. I would have finished much sooner if ALPHA had been where I was sure it would be based on the symmetry of the other theme answers. But it wasn't so I spent a long time looking at the greek alphabet I had written in the margins, trying to fit the letters radomly into any of the open boxes. Of course it was OR(ALPHA)ASE that finally solved the problem. Oops, just noticed that I finished with OpEd in place of ONES - that sucks.

I thought it was BETA MUsic award and was looking for a way to make that work. And I was looking for a rIOT A_s something for Melees. I liked the ALPHA/OMEGA, was just expecting there to be more in between. I got whooPI really early on, but didn't know it was Greek until near the end.